


Scent of You

by berrycoups



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, F/M, Human/Vampire Relationship, Reader-Insert, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:03:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berrycoups/pseuds/berrycoups
Summary: You notice him the moment he walks in for his first day of work.,A modern day office romance where you fall in love with the man that everyone has their eye on.





	1. Chapter 1

You notice him the moment he walks in for his first day of work.

“Rumor has it… the new guy got in through his family’s connections,” you hear your coworker whisper to the guy beside him, who scoffs in response.

“Apparently his father or grandfather is the founder of the company,” the other guy adds. “Either way, what an easy way in.”

You nibble on the back of your pen as you watch the newcomer greet your supervisor with a handshake. H _mm… so he’s one of those…_

Your supervisor is showing the new guy around the office, and everyone in the office openly stares at him. He is a hard person to miss, his silver hair and paper-white skin a stark contrast to his all-black, button-down and slacks outfit.

Your eyes follow him for a moment before you look back at your computer and continue on with your work.

 

+

 

Nothing good would come out of bad-mouthing the newbie, so you decide to ignore all the excitement surrounding you. But as the weeks pass by, you find your eyes wandering, and you can’t help but to notice certain things about him.

For example, he drinks coffee - too much of it to be considered normal judging from your observations. He drinks it black, always piping hot, and goes into the break room for refills at least five times a day.

He is punctual, arriving exactly at nine in the morning and leaving exactly at five. You’ve never seen him stay even a minute longer; he was always out the door by five on the dot.

He is fashionable. Well, at least that’s what your coworkers say. But you disagree on the fact that he’s fashionable just because he wears all black, all the time. An all-black outfit is  _not_  considered fashion for you, but you can’t help but agree that the leather jacket he wears on the daily makes him stand out even more among the staff.

Last but not least, he likes his space. Your open office gives everyone the opportunity to sit anywhere they like. However, the new guy always picks the desk furthest away from the window, every single day, without fail or hesitation.

He’s a mysterious guy, that’s a fact. He’s polite enough to everyone around him, but rarely makes small talk with anyone. He doesn’t speak any more than he needs to, and doesn’t linger around anywhere any longer than he has to. Judging from the rumors circulating around the office, everyone had initially assumed he’d be a terrible, lazy worker, but in reality he is quite the opposite. He gets his work done on time, and perfectly too — even going as far as offering to help others with their extra workload.

He seems like the perfect employee, but something about him made it difficult for others to get close to him. After talking to your coworkers during your lunch break, you find out that the new guy has never been out for drinks with anyone after work hours. A handful of the women in your office had even approached him, asking him out for a casual dinner during the weekends, to which he all rejected in his typical, distantly polite manner.

You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is definitely something about him; the way he closed himself off to everyone around him was puzzling to you. One could argue that it was downright rude of him to be so antisocial within your workplace under the guise of staying professional. He should have been making some sort of effort to get to know his coworkers, but he was doing the bare minimum.

You couldn’t help the curiosity bubbling inside you because for a guy who’s rumored to be a product of nepotism, he is actually very hardworking. Yet when it came time for socializing and company dinners - the very things that are considered the “perks” of the job - he shuns out without any hesitation. And so far, he’s defied all your expectations of what you had thought of him based on gossip alone, so your curiosity only festers and grows.

 

+

 

In the five months he’s worked here, you have had three interactions with him.

The first time takes place while you are on your way the bathroom, oblivious to the world and looking down at your phone before bumping shoulders with him. The phone slips from your hands out of shock, and before you could even let out a curse, his hand swipes out and catches it with his shockingly fast reflexes. You jump back in bewilderment, amazed at how he was able to save your phone screen from shattering into a million cracks mere centimeters away from the tiled floor.

You step forward wanting to thank him but he jolts away from you, with his eyes lowered to the ground and his hand gripping tightly onto your phone. He stands there, still and silent, and you almost think that someone actually pressed pause in your vision like a video. You wait for him to return the phone and count four miserably long seconds before he snaps his head up to look at you properly. His eyes are visibly shaky and his lips parted open as if he’s about to say something, but again, he just stands there gaping like a fish.

“My phone…?” You reach out to him first with a cautious hand, and whatever frozen state he was in melts away in an instant at the sound of your voice.

“Yes, yes. Of course,” he says a little too quickly. “Sorry.” He mutters a quick apology and hands the phone back to you before briskly walking away. Your hands fumble trying to catch your phone, and you turn on your heel with wide eyes, staring at the back of the strange newcomer as he quickly walks down the hall away from you.

You head back to your desk in a confused daze, completely forgetting that you even had to go pee. Thirty minutes later, you’re walking back to the bathroom only to realize that you didn’t even get to thank him for catching your phone.

The second time happens in the staff break room. It’s 2:35 pm, and you are waiting for your microwavable lunch to finish heating up when he walks in. You see him halt mid step for a second out of the corner of your eyes just before he clears his throat and casually walks up beside you to pop a new capsule into the coffee maker.

There is a brief moment of silence between the two of you as the microwave heats up your food and the coffee machine drips down fresh, hot brew. You stand in the front of your food awkwardly with arms crossed unmoving. It’s been a few weeks since your last interaction with him and your brain is in disarray thinking of all the different scenarios that could happen in the break room. So you stand there, eyeing your food as it spins slowly, thinking of things to say and words being jumbled in your mouth when he speaks.

“You know that stuff is terrible for you, right?” he asks nonchalantly.

Your breath gets caught in your chest. This is the first time he’s ever spoken a proper sentence to you, and his deep voice takes you by complete surprise. You stare at him blankly as his coffee finishes brewing, and he blows on it once before taking a small sip. The new guy smirks at you before he nods in farewell and walks out of the break room.

You stand there staring into the open air in front of you, mind trying to put together the incident that had happened just now. The new guy did a complete 180 since your first interaction, and you aren’t sure how to process the new information. The shrill beeping of the microwave snaps you out of your thoughts, and you take your steamed noodles out before heading back to your desk with the image of his smirk still burned into your mind.

The third interaction happens in the copy room. it’s just the two of you again - alone, just like the bizarre incident that occurred three weeks ago in the break room.

You walk into the copy room only to see the new guy using the machine to make copies of something you couldn’t quite make out. You knock on the door to get his attention and hold up a leaflet of reports in your hands, and before you can even say anything, he cuts you off with a sheepish look.

“Sorry, I’ve got like three books to copy… this might take a while.”

Your lips press together tightly. You aren’t sure if you should wait for him to finish and deal with the uncomfortable tension in the air, or leave and just try your luck again later. The answer ends up being neither of those options.

A loud buzzing sound and jarring clank interrupt your thoughts. The machine hums vigorously before sputtering out in a classic printer jam.

“Oh, shit,” he swears under his breath, wide-eyed, and it’s the first time you’ve heard him curse. “I think I just broke the machine. Shit.”

You clap a hand over your mouth and hold back a laugh. “It’s only an $9,000-something copy machine,” you still snort out.

“$9,000?! What kind of a copy machine costs $9,000?!”

You can’t help but grin at his bewildered expression, panic clearly setting in once he realizes the worth of the beat-up machine.

You bite down on your lip to hold in a giggle as you walk over and place your hands on top of the machine. “Don’t worry, this happens all the time.” Gracelessly, you knee the side of the machine over and over until a beeping noise comes from it. With a few more easy button pushes, you wait and watch as a blank page is printed out before magically working properly again.

“You’d think a company doing this well would fix their broken machines, huh?” You joke, forgetting in your pride that things had be awkward up until now between the two of you.

“Uh, sure,” he laughs uneasily. There’s no need for him to mention his dad owns the company.

“If you’re going to take a while… I guess I’ll just come back then,” you slowly state out loud.

“I shouldn’t take more than ten minutes,” he mumbles out. “You could wait here,” He turns to look at you with an uncertain voice. “If you want…”

“Here?” You look around in the tight space filled with nothing but shelves of blank paper, two printers and a busted up copy machine. “There’s nothing but—” and he cuts you off with a frustrated sigh.

“Hey, hey,” You frown and step towards him. “You didn’t break the machine, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not the—” he breathes out before stopping himself and smile warily, “Actually yeah, you’re right. The machine seems fine. You can just go and come back. I’ll let you know when I’m done using the machine.”

“I thought you wanted me to stay,” You joke lightly, leaning your elbow on one of the printers on the other side of the tiny room.

He chuckles, bringing his fingers up to shake his bangs out of his eyes before gathering his copies into one folder. “If you don’t mind the wait, you’re always free to join me.” He picks up his second book and inserts it into the feeder, tapping on a few buttons to start up the machine again.

“You’re almost halfway done,” You sigh with a quiet sort of smile, “I guess I could stay and chat with the new guy.”

You hear him let out a laugh, watching him insert a couple more chapters before turning to look at you. “I have a name by the way — it’s Seungcheol. My name is Choi Seungcheol.”

“Ah… Seungcheol,” You smile when he properly introduces himself to you for the first time. “Nice to finally know your name, my name is —”

“Y/N,” he interrupts you abruptly, “I know, I can hear Seulgi calling out your name a dozen times a day.”

“You can hear her from all the way on your side?” Your eyebrow quirks up, his desk was in the complete opposite direction from yours. You could barely even hear conversations being held from five desks down, how is it possible for him to hear someone call your name on the other side of the office?

“Your friend has a very shrill voice,” he grimaces, thinking back to every instance his eye drums would ring whenever your friend would call out your name.

“Well, I can’t deny that,” You nod agreeing with him because anyone in the office could recognize her voice from anywhere. “You still have very good hearing.”

“Yeah… I get that a lot,” He speaks softly, arms crossed as he standing still on the other side of the cramped room facing you. He watches you quietly for a few seconds before continuing with his next words. “So you know where I sit, huh?”

You almost choke on your own spit, appalled at his question because it’s  _true_ , you did know where he sat at because you catch yourself staring at him more often than you’d like to admit, but how do you even answer to that question without outing yourself as some freaky stalker?

His lips quirk up into a subtle smile when he notices your prolonged silence and continues on his own. “Well, I guess everyone in this office probably knows where I sit, too. I feel like I’m the only one who’s never moved from their spot since day one.”

You let out a nervous laugh, secretly feeling thankful at how he chose to talk on without waiting for a response. The machine whirs out its last page and he turns to gather everything up into a second folder before pulling out a third book.

“Almost done,” He holds it up to show you before inserting it into the copier. “Guess you’re staying with me ‘til I’m done with this?”

“Guess so. Lucky me, I get to spend some one-on-one time with Mr. Popular,” you joke lightly.

“Popular? Me?” He glances at you over his shoulder with his brow raised. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, you’ve turned down every woman who’s asked you out, right?”

“How do you know that?” He turns to face you with an incredulous look.

“I’m friends with half the office,” You shrug, trying to make yourself seem less and less like a stalker. You wave your hand around casually as you continue, “I hear things here and there.”

“Are you like them too?” A smile ghosting on his lips when he questions you.

“What do you mean?” Your stomach squirms uncomfortably because you can already guess at what he’s implying here.

“Do you want a date with me as well?”

Your palms are suddenly sweaty, but you try to laugh it off nervously, breaking eye contact with him as you turn to shuffle through your files instead.

“Oh, I forgot to bring the other section…” You lie through your teeth, you have everything prepared in your little folder but you just needed any excuse to bolt out of the copy room.

“Ah, well… this last one is almost done,” He almost looks disappointed, and you feel a pang of guilt when you see his reaction.

“Yeah! it’s fine, I’ll… I’ll just come back after you’re done!” You cringe internally at how awkward you sound and rush to walk out of the room anyways. You don’t even turn back but he stands there motionless as he watches you leave.

You’re back at your desk, heart ramming inside your chest still thinking about his words. A date? With him? He’s certainly attractive, you couldn’t deny it even if you wanted to. You had nothing against him personally, besides you’re first couple odd run-ins with him, you just weren’t sure if he’s even the type of guy you’d go for. Still, the question lingered in your head and you forget to get your copies that day, lost in thought over the single question.

 

+

 

You spent the next few weeks after the third incident thinking about him. Sure, you’ve watched him go around the office ever since his first day here, but he has never occupied your mind as much as he did since your last run in with him.

_Do you want a date with me as well?_

YouR mind has replayed that moment in your head over a thousand times, and after the 300th time you’ve re-imagined it, you weren’t sure if he seemed hopeful when asking you the question or if you’ve made it up in your delusional mind. The only thing you’re absolutely positive about is the slight quirk of his lips when he asked the question and  _that_  is what makes your thoughts go wild

And with the question constantly lurking in your mind, you could barely focus on work. Thankfully, it was the end of the busy season and you were pretty much done with most of your files. You end up sitting back most days, eyes glazing over at your unfinished documents and only snapping to focus when you see him walking around. You watch him put on his leather jacket before entering the elevator and you catch yourself biting down on your lip more than a handful of times.

The moment he leaves the office is when your mind would especially wander and you rush to leave the office as soon as possible as well. Not because you want to catch him walking outside or follow him, no, that’s what a  _actual_  stalker does, but because you want to go home and think about him in peace and quiet in the comfort of your single studio bedroom.

By the fourth week, you imagine yourself going on a real date with him and much to your demise, you can actually feel butterflies in your stomach. Not that you’d ever ask him out. A date with him? The idea itself is ridiculous. He’s already rejected all the other women in the office, so what are the chances of him saying yes to you?

Yet despite your pessimistic thoughts, you find yourself looking forward to your next run in with him. Every interaction you’ve had so far was so eye-opening and unexpected, that you feel like you learn something completely different about him every time you see him despite all the rumors surrounding him in the office. 

You stand in front of the mirror in the staff bathroom, reapplying your lipstick and wondering when you’re next interaction with him will be but little did you know, tonight will be your fourth.

 

+

 

“3! 2! 1!” You down your third shot of tequila with difficulty. You don’t even like drinking, but this is what you get for losing another round of beer pong.

What kind of after-work party even gets this rowdy? Everyone in your office was absolutely smashed, and it was only 8pm on a thursday night. You shake your head in refusal when your coworker invites you to another round of pong, and you excuse yourself away from the sticky table overflowing with beer.

“You should really take it easy now,” You hear a voice behind you, and you whip around to see the new guy, Mister I-Have-A-Name-By-The-Way, looking at you with yet another smirk.

“Oh. New Guy.” You wobble after turning around so fast.

He frowns for a second before huffing at your tipsiness. “I thought we cleared up the fact that I have a name.” The memory of the copy room kicks down the door of your consciousness, and you cannot help but to flush from the thought. “Anyway, I’ve been here for a few months now… I don’t think I’m considered ‘new’ anymore.”

“Whatever,” you chuckle nervously, hoping to hell and back that he wouldn’t notice any out of the ordinary stammerings coming out of you. “Until someone else is hired after you in our department, you’re still the newbie of our group.”

Seungcheol blinks at how easily you’ve integrated him into your world. “Our Group” is what you said without batting your false lashes.

“What are you even doing here so late?” You continue, “Don’t you always leave at five?”

“What? Are you stalking me now?” He questions you with an almost sarcastic tone.

“S-stalking?!” you sputter. “Of course not!” You can feel the alcohol hitting you harder now, and it certainly didn’t help you keep your composure when you stumble over your words like an idiot in front seungcheol.

“Your stares linger for quite a while,” He informs you as he leans down to match eye level with you. “Let’s stop pretending here.”

You’re pretty sure your face is beet-red now, but you blame it entirely on the drink in your hand.

“I shouldn’t have drank so much,” you mutter to yourself as you shake your head. “I don’t even  _like_ tequila.”

“I agree. You seem like you’ve pushed yourself quite a bit today especially after losing so many times,” Seungcheol says. He must have drank too; you could smell the patron on his breath.

“And how much did you drink, new guy?” You counter, deciding to completely ignore his previous remarks about you being the office stalker.

“Enough for tonight, that’s for sure,” he chuckles. He runs his hand through his silver locks and lets out a small sigh before putting his hand out in front of you. “And I told you before, didn’t I? Just call me Seungcheol.”

You reach out to shake his hand when someone yells out your name.

“Let’s go for another round!” You whip your head back and see Jungkook, the new intern stumbling towards you in his drunken stupor. “I bet we can win this time, I  _promise_.” He’s laughing hysterically to himself, words slurring as he gets closer to you and Seungcheol.

“Oh no…” you moan out and your face scrunches up unpleasantly because you know for a fact that you won’t last through another game of beer pong. Seungcheol picks up on your uneasiness and stands in front of you, blocking you from Jungkook’s view.

“Hey, hey,“ You hear seungcheol say in his deep voice and all you can see is the back of his wide shoulders, the black silk of his shirt stretching out as he puts his hands up to grab the intern by his arms. “I don’t think you can even handle another game. Come on, let’s go sit you down.”

You have to shake the haze out of your eyes when Seungcheol moves away from you, watching him guide the intoxicated boy to the nearest chair. You can hear Jungkook protest in muffled tones against the loud music blaring throughout the office, but you see Seungcheol shake his head, firmly pressing him down into the armchair.

Before you can even stumble yourself towards them, Seungcheol is in front of you again.

“Let’s go,” he says lowly into your ear. “We should go hide until he forgets about playing another round with you.”

You can’t help the giggle spilling out of your lips and go along with him easily. You reach for his hand and drag him down the hall in front of you. The two of you don’t know where you’re going, blindly opening doors between smiles and laughter until one of them opens.

It’s the private bathroom tucked away into the corner of this office floor usually reserved for your supervisor, but tonight, the door is unlocked and the two of you stumble in. Closing the door behind your back, you flip up the light switch and the bulb flickers on. Seungcheol stands in front you, tall and leaning in close.

“We’re going to hide in the bathroom?” he asks, tilting his head to side with amusement.

“Not the most ideal place… but it’s the only door that opened,” Your voice pitches slightly from nerves, too shy all of a sudden. “W-we can leave though… let’s go find another—”

Your words cut off short at a sudden banging on the door and you jump when you hear Jungkook calling for you on the other side.

“Heyyyy!” You hear Jungkook’s words drawl out lazily. “Let’s play another game, I have to beat that little prick, fucking Kim Taehyung…”

Seungcheol covers your mouth with his hand before you can even open your mouth. Jungkook continues to knock on the door, calling your name until you hear him shuffle away, either giving up or going to knock on another door.

“Persistent,” Seungcheol notes, mostly to himself, not even noticing his hand still placed over your lips before he absently notes, “Oh, you’re wearing a different perfume today, huh?”

You’re surprised he would notice something like that, and muffle a reply that snaps him out of his own thoughts before he lowers his hand. You break away from him, whirling around to face him properly but you move too fast too suddenly and your vision spins in front of you.

“Jesus, everything is spinning…” You wobble on your feet, head in your hands.

“You really need to watch your step,” He mutters out, placing a firm hand on your arm. “Don’t want you falling on the floor.”

“Well, if I fall… I have you to catch me, right?” You giggle and fall back against the door, leaning on it to steady yourself.

Seungcheol watches you with a smile. “You’re lucky I find you cute,” he says softly.

“You find me cute?” Drunk you is flattered by the comment and already wants to fling yourself onto him. “I didn’t think you had any interest in me.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know… I sometimes got the feeling that you were trying to avoid me…”

“Well, I guess that’s not entirely false…”

You step forward to say something but you trip over your own feet, falling forward and nearly crash to the floor until Seungcheol catches you in his arms. It seemed like the tequila hadn’t let up a bit, and you’re in his arms laughing now.

Seungcheol looks down at your flushed face and smiles widely. “What’s so funny?” he questions.

“I don’t know,” You grin, “Everything’s just funny.”

“Yeah, you’re  _very_  drunk now.” He lowers his face to nudge his nose against yours, before raising his head back up again. “You’re cut off from alcohol for the rest of the night.”

“You’re probably right.” You reach up to place your hands on both sides of his face. “But… I just find it so funny, you know? How we’ve never really spoken to each other ever since you started working here, and now we’re here just hiding away from everyone else in the bathroom.”

“Tequila does wonders for my confidence,” He grins. “I’ve wanted to approach you the day I started here, but I was just too scared.”

“Scared? Of me?” You scoff. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

Seungcheol laughs a little, mostly to himself. “I don’t think you’d understand the real reason why I was scared of you. To be completely honest, I’m still scared of being too close to you.”

You slide your arms down to wrap around his neck and press your chest even closer to him. You feel his breathing stop for a second, but he tightens his hold around your waist.

“How close…” You lean up on your tippy toes to place the lightest of kisses on the corner of his lip, “…Is too close?”

He closes his eyes tightly and lets out a soft groan. “We… shouldn’t be doing this.”

“What’s wrong? I thought you liked me,” You pout, looking up at him through your lashes.

“I can’t be like this around you.”

You’re not thinking straight and with the alcohol clouding your better judgement, you bring his head down for a proper kiss.

“God…” he groans against your lips, but the next second he’s dropping his head on your shoulder and breathing in deeply before moaning. “I shouldn’t have stayed for this party.” His grip on you is tight, fingernails almost clawing at your sides.

“No need to be scared,” you mumble into his ear. Liquid courage burns through veins as you say the next words. “You can do whatever you want with me.”

With a sharp intake, he breathes you in, he breathes you in so deeply — the scent of your shampoo and lotion from the night before, the perfume you lightly spritzed to apply right before the party and the smell of  _you_. The completely unexplainable smell that you carry drowns his mind even more and when he opens his eyes to see you looking at him through hooded eyes, something snaps in him, and before you know it, he picks you up with ease and wraps your legs around his waist as he backs you up against the bathroom wall.

“You shouldn’t say something like that,” His deep voice is almost growling now. The look on his face has changed and there isn’t a hint of hesitation left in his eyes anymore. His bangs fall into his face as he looks down at you with half-lidded eyes. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say they almost looked red in the bathroom lighting. “You don’t know what I can do to you.”

But you ignore his words and kiss him once more, more harshly this time as you suck on his lower lip. “What do you want to do with me?” You softly question him in between kisses and you feel his hand gripping the back of your neck tightly.

“That’s a dangerous question…” he mumbles lowly, nudging his nose into your flushed cheek. “I think you already know… if you continue this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

Your breathing becomes even more erratic at his words. You’re piss drunk and you know it, but you know that even sober you would be disappointed if you didn’t take this opportunity to make out with the new office hottie.

“Then don’t stop,” You grin almost wickedly before turning your head to the side and kissing him with an open mouth. Seungcheol hesitates for a split second, but you pull him in even closer by wrapping your arms around his neck firmly and he immediately reciprocates.

It’s messy and sloppy, you’re both drunk off your minds as you kiss each other madly. His tongue drags across your bottom lip as you breathe his name out loud in his drunken haze. Your fingers run through his soft locks as your other hand is gripping tightly onto the back of his shirt.

“So good…” he mumbles out. “You smell so good…”

His fingers weave through your hair and he grabs a handful of your locks before harshly tugging it down. You hiss from the sudden pain but moan when you hear the slick sounds of him sucking on your earlobe.

“It’s- it’s so hot in here…” You manage to say out loud, your hot breath fanning against the side of his face. Seungcheol only hums in pleasure into your ear. His kisses trail down to the side of your jaw, licking and nibbling gently on your skin. He dips down to your neck only to find your turtleneck restricting him from going down any further.

“Damn sweater,” he grumbles impatiently. He moves both hands down to the edge of your sweater, but your hands are already rushing to take it off for him. One of your dangly earrings get caught in the fabric and Seungcheol tries to unhook it from a knotted strand before taking off the entire earring instead and throwing both of them on the floor.

His eyes are almost glazed from both the lust and alcohol combined as he takes in the sight in front of him. All you’re wearing underneath is a lacy bralette, it looks thin and delicate and he’s almost tempted to rip it apart with just a single finger.

Seungcheol studies all the moles and marks on your skin, licking his lips as his eyes move from your heaving chest to your neck, where he can almost feel your quickened pulse vibrating throughout the entire room.

“So pretty…” he breathes out, mesmerized. Your once-perfect hair is now a mess and you attempt to tame it by bringing it all to one side, tilting your head and revealing the side of your neck in the process.

He lets out a low growl, sounding almost animalistic when he grabs you again. Seungcheol picks you up in a single motion, holding your legs around his waist as he walks to set you down on top of the bathroom sink. His nose is buried deep into the crook of your neck, nuzzled into the back of your hair as he starts sucking on your skin.

You yelp in surprise because of how sensitive your neck is but he holds you steady, his arms wrapped tight around your waist as he marks you over and over again with his lips. Deep purples and reds have blossomed from your neck down to the supple skin of your breasts.

He almost wants to laugh at how hard your heart is beating. With every wet kiss he places on your body, he can hear it almost ringing inside his own dead heart. He feels jittery, almost high on how good he feels knowing that  _he’s_  the one making you feel this way.

You fingers are tangled in his hair but he doesn’t mind the occasional sharp tugs you give. He can barely even register the pain when he feels this euphoric being able to taste you this way. His fingers play with the strap of your bra, his kisses now reaching up to your collarbones as he turns his eyes to the thin black strap. He bites on it, pulling on the strap with his teeth until it can’t stretch anymore and lets go with a loud snap.

“Ow,” You wince in pain. “That hurts.” But he’s back to biting your lips, muttering a quick apology with a smirk.

Your fingers fumble in trying to unbutton his shirt and he grins when you whine out in frustration.

“You too,” You’ve only managed to get the second button and your brows are knitted together in dissatisfaction. “I want this off.”

“You’re rather demanding when you’re drunk,” He laughs, smiling at you adoringly as he watches you struggle with his shirt.

“Shut up,” You frown. “Take this off before I tear it off.”

“So insistent,” He teases but complies anyways. He backs away just enough to give himself room to unbutton the rest himself. You’re openly staring at his revealed skin without any humility as he moves to undo the buttons on his cuffs. “Happy now?” His black shirt now lay on the ground next to your sweater, and you can only hum in approval.

He’s so white, skin so smooth and pale, you reach out with a single finger to tentatively touch him.

“You’re so cold,” You note absentmindedly.

“Am I? It is winter right now…” You place your palm down on his chiseled chest, feeling it rumble when he speaks in his deep voice. You nod in response as you move your hand further down, feeling every curve and dip of his muscles on his lean body. You finally look up at him again when you fingers reach the rim of his pants, fingers hooked on his belt as you tug him closer to you.

“What’s with that look?” He questions as he snuggles in close between your thighs.

“I want you to kiss me again,” You tell him and so he does. Pulling you into a deep hug, his ice cold skin makes you gasp sharply at the contact. He tries to rub soothing circles on the small of your back to help calm down your rising goosebumps, but you’re so, so warm. Heat radiating off of you with every desperate beat of your heart.

He absolutely relishes in your warmth, moaning out your name when you cup his face, tilting your head to deepen the kiss. The both of you are panting, chests rising rapidly, trying to get another breath in before desperately kissing each other again. Seungcheol grips your chin, tilting your face up and go down to your neck once more. He glances down at the dark colored marks he made on your throat until his eyes fixate on the spot that makes his mouth water with hunger.

Your rapidly beating heart is driving him absolutely insane. The tiny inkling of soberness in the back of his mind is the only thing stopping him drawing out his fangs and piercing through your skin. But that one spot on your jugular tempts him so much, pupils dilating when he sees the thick blue veins pulsing under your paper thin flesh.

He snaps out of his thought when you call out his name. Closing his eyes tightly, he shakes the horrifying thought out of his head and leans down to bite down on your bralette instead.

“Is this what you always wear to work?” He playfully questions, returning to your lips for another kiss in an attempt to clear his mind.

“Maybe,” You give him a coy smile. “Want to see if I’m wearing a matching pair today?” Feeling even more courageous, you reach down to pull the zipper of your jeans done when he stops you.

“What’s wrong?” You’re surprised at the sudden motion and peer into his face. Your eyes have difficult time trying to focus on his suddenly pinched brows and you burst out a laugh. “Oh, I see. Do you want to take these off for me instead?”

His body stills and you lean it to kiss him again when you notice the way his lips shake into an uneasy smile. “No, that’s not it…” he says quietly.

You can’t help the frown forming in your lips when he doesn’t return the kiss. “Then lemme just take it off,” you grumble and your fingers are reaching down at your pants again.

“W-wait…” he stammers out, grabbing your hands to stop them once more.

“Ah. You want to keep my clothes on?”

“No, it’s not-,” he’s shaking the fog desperately out of his head.

You almost whine with impatience from him suddenly holding himself back, but he continues. “This isn’t right…”

“What’s not right?” You grasp his arms wanting to get close to him again. All you can think of right now is straddling him on the toilet seat even though your head is spinning with dizziness from both your arousal and high bac.

“We can’t do this,” He speaks louder this time, voice sounding clearer as if he’s sobered up within the past few seconds.

“Why not?” Your breath gets hitched in your throat.

“We can’t,” He repeats himself in a firmer tone.

“Please?” You’re almost embarrassed you have to beg. “Just one more kiss?”

“N _o_.” Seungcheol pulls himself away from you with an agonized look. “It’s me…  _I_  can’t do this with you.”

You hastily grip the back of his neck to stubbornly pull him towards you again, but he puts both hands up to prevent himself from getting any closer. “You’re drunk. I’m drunk. I won’t do this to you when we’re both intoxicated.”

You whimper out feeling needy and rejected at the same time, but he grabs onto your shoulders and firmly forces you an arm’s length away from him.

“Maybe… maybe another day, when we’re both sober and you still think of me this way,” He says softly. He slides his hands down your arms and you stand there in stunned silence. Even in your drunk mind, you know how considerate and reasonable he’s being. Seungcheol picks your sweater back up from the floor and shakes off the dust before pulling it over your head.

“I know I still will,” He places a gentle kiss on your forehead the moment you pop out from your sweater opening. “I hope you will too.”

 

+

 

You have no idea how much time passes before he insists on taking you home. Your apartment is only a few blocks away, but he gets in the cab with you anyway, just to be sure.

Seungcheol’s arms are wrapped securely around you the entire time. He pulls you in close the moment the two of you settle inside the bright yellow cab and you unabashedly move to sit on his lap. He doesn’t force you away this time, instead choosing to bury his nose into the nook of your neck. You can feel him inhale and exhale in deep breaths, lips barely brushing against your skin and you have to hold back a moan in fear of him pushing you away again.

When you turn to look at him, he brings his face up to look at you with almost drowsy eyes and you giggle at his puppy-like state.

“You smell so good,” he murmurs out in a sleepy voice. “So sweet…”

“Hey,” You cup his chin with both hands, bringing his face up to look at him properly. “You’re the one who wanted to take me home. You can’t fall asleep on him.”

“I’m not sleepy,” He leans into one hand and nuzzles his cheek into your warm palm. “You just smell so good right now… it’s so relaxing…”

“Mhmm…” You don’t believe it for a second and lightly slap his face. You’re thoroughly enjoying seeing this new side of him but you couldn’t have him fall asleep on you so you try to jolt him out of his sleepy daze. “Wake up. I need to make sure you get home properly too.”

He chuckles in his deep voice, straightening his back as he shakes the drowse out of his eyes. “I’ll get home fine.”

“You better,” You retort with a smile. “You got this taxi for me, don’t make me worry about you.”

“I’ll be okay, you don’t have to worry about me,” He grabs your hand away from his face and kisses your fingers before giving you a wide smile.

You study his face, feeling warm and still a bit jittery from the drunken makeout session in the bathroom. The heat hasn’t left your body since you left the office, and you know you’ll have a long night to yourself once you get back home. Seungcheol could smell it, the way the cloud of lust still hasn’t left your body and he continues to smile, thinking about less than chivalrous thoughts of you.

“Your canines are so pointy…” You remark absentmindedly, eyeing his pearly white teeth and poke at them with your finger. His hand snaps up to grab them away from his mouth but you don’t pay much attention to his sudden actions. “And you’re so pale, too.”

He doesn’t say a word; he just stares at you with an unreadable expression.

“What are you?” You chuckle to yourself. “Some kind of vampire?”

“Yes,” He blurts out honestly before he can even give it a second thought.

“ _Pffbt_ —” You burst out laughing. “Halloween already passed, you dummy.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” he says. He’s incredibly drunk as well, and he knows he’ll definitely regret telling you the moment he sobers up but he felt like he just had to tell you the truth.

“Don’t lie to me,” You almost demand, but you trace over his jawline with your finger and look up into his eyes with wonder.

“I’m not lying,” His eyes bore into you, and when you blink once more, his eyes are definitely scarlet, and it has nothing to do with the lighting at all. “I’m a vampire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> biggest thanks to becky and kappy for helping me start this story. love ya lots!!


	2. Chapter 2

In a single instant, it felt like the whole world had imploded inside of you — every wild theory, every bizarre suspicion, and every delusional thought that crossed your mind had been true. After waking up hungover and alone and spending the entire weekend dissecting every interaction you’ve had with him along with all of his weird habits, your eyes light up with a million questions running through your mind.

But the main question was:  _Why you_?

 

+

 

The next day at work, you seek him out the second you’re given the opportunity. Luckily, you find him back in the break room, about to pop in another coffee capsule at 2:40pm.

You close the door firmly behind you, leaning against it as you hold onto the metal knob.

“Can we talk about what happened that night?” you ask without waiting a moment longer.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” He responds coolly with his back towards you, as if he already knew you were going to walk in.

“Your eyes… they turned  _red_ ,” you blurt out, your carefully planned speech falling to the wayside.

Seungcheol’s hands dig into his pockets, and he turns his head back to look at you over his shoulder, barely making eye contact. You can see him quirk his brow attractively, but that only infuriates you because it feels like he’s dismissing you. The look on his face can only be described as guarded as he blinks first and busies himself with his coffee once more.

“The light was weird in the bathroom,” he tells you. “You were seeing things. And drunk.”

“I wasn’t drunk enough to hallucinate,” you retort, walking up to him and grabbing his shoulder to force him into facing you properly. “Choi Seungcheol. What are you? Answer me.”

He looks at you with a blank expression — holding his breath with eyes unmoving and lips pressed together so tight you could almost see the veins pop out in his jawline when he grits his teeth.

“You said,” you swallow thickly, almost afraid to speak the words aloud, “you were a v-vampire?”

He stays silent as you peer up at him and focus on his lips. You reach up with cautious fingers, barely touching his bottom lips when he suddenly lets out a deep sigh at your touch.

“It wasn’t just your eyes…” Curiosity growing more and more within you, you press down harder on his bottom lip and reveal his teeth. Seungcheol’s eyes widen and his hand snaps up to grab your fingers away, but he’s a half a second too slow because you’ve already caught a glimpse of his teeth — too short and too dull compared to the pointed canines you know you touched the other night.

“What are you?” you demand rather than question this time.

“I’m…” he pauses. Brows painfully knitted together in frustration, he turns around and drags a hand through his hair, pushing his silver locks back as he lets out a long and slow breath. You wait patiently until he turns back around to face you, his perfectly waxed hair a mess and eyes shaky before they gaze up and fixate onto yours. “I told you already. I’m a vampire.”

And you finally get to hear the three words you’ve been wanting to hear all weekend.

“I knew it!” You yelp in excitement. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

“What?” He’s stunned and nothing less than bewildered by your reaction. “What’s going on?”

“I spent this entire weekend thinking about you, trying to connect everything…” You pace back and forth in the cramped space. “Besides I know what I saw! I wasn’t sober that night, I know, b-but I saw your eyes turn red. Bright red. And I felt your teeth. Who can deny the facts when you can see it right in front of you!?”

Seungcheol reaches out and grabs your wrist with one hand, causing you to halt  from ranting on and on about your various theories.

“I didn’t mean for you to find out,” he says with wavering eyes. “Please, don’t tell anyone about this.”

You blink, your breath stuck in your chest as the gears continued to turn in your head. “But you wanted me to know, didn’t you?” you question him with soft wonder.

He gulps. He’s caught off by that question, because he did want you to know. Because he knows he only speaks the truth when he’s drunk. He only took this wild chance by attending the party because a deep, deep part of him had hoped he would run into you, finally being able to spill his dark secret to him. But now that he’s sober and thinking with a clear mind, he’s terrified of the repercussions - the rejection and fear you might show him.

You’re still staring, still waiting for his answer when he tries to speak, but the words are caught on his lips, and he can only nod slowly in response until you ask your next question.

“Why me?”

He grabs his coffee and takes one big gulp of the scalding hot drink. “If I’m being perfectly honest,” the words feel heavy and slow on his tongue as he wipes the corner of his wet lip with the back of his hand, “I’m… not even sure myself.”

“What does that even mean? Did you just tell me on a whim? I assumed something like this would be a secret you carry to the grave. I mean— no, no offense—”

“None taken,” he chuckles humorlessly and leans against the counter, shoulder slouched forward as he studies the dark pool in his mug. “I didn’t just blurt it out to you randomly. I just— I feel different around you. At first I thought I didn’t think those feelings were good but now… Now I’m not quite so sure, anymore.”

Despite your better judgement telling you to give him space and time to full explain himself, you move in close, placing both hands on either side of him and onto the edge of the sticky counter. Your unrelenting curiosity itches for more answers and explanations, so you look and match his uneasy eyes with your own unfaltering gaze.

“What do you mean you’re not sure?” you prompt, refusing to let him take the easy way out.

“I’m not sure how to word this, but I think— I think it’s a good feeling, and it’s the first time that anybody has ever given me this feeling,” Seungcheol sucks in his breath and locks eyes with you. “I’m just not sure how to process this because I’ve never experienced it… but one thing that I’m certain about, without a doubt, is that I want to get to know you better. More.”

“You… You do?”

“I do,” he whispers with a ghost of a smile on his lips. He sets his cup down and lets out a quiet laugh, feeling relieved that he was finally able to get the words off his chest. “And if I’m not mistaken…” he moves his hand from the mug’s handle and places it tentatively over yours, “you feel the same way about me… don’t you?”

Now it was your turn to feel nervous. You swallow, your dry spit moving like sandpaper as you force it down your throat. You want to move your hand away from him, embarrassed with the way it was starting to sweat on top of the sticky, unwiped countertop, but he has already laced his fingers through yours. That small action sends your heart into a frenzy.

“I hope I’m not making you nervous,” Seungcheol says softly.

“Just a little,” you tighten your grip on his hand. There was no need for little white lies when you were positive that he could probably hear your heartbeat that was deafening to your own ears. Taking a brave step forward, the space between your bodies is almost closed, and you slip your fingers through his other hand and tell him, “Yes, I feel the same way about you too.”

A wide smile breaks through his anxious face, and he’s now beaming at you with all the satisfaction in the world. An elated giggle spills out of your lips, and before you know it, the nerves that consumed your entire body from only two seconds ago have dispersed into nothing thanks to the help of a thousand butterflies fluttering in your chest.

“I’m so glad,” he tells you contently. “I was worried you’d say no.”

“And miss my chance on getting to know an actual vampire?”

Seungcheol chuckles nervously. “I’m still not sure how I’m supposed to process a human actually knowing that I am one…”

“Well, if you’re worried about me spilling to others,” you lean back with blushed cheeks, “it’s obviously a big secret so I promise I won’t tell anyone. You have my word.”

Seungcheol smiles gratefully at that. “Thank you,” he tells you.

“No one would believe me anyways,” you grin cheekily. “But really… no wonder, I’ve never actually seen you eat anything asides from drinking coffee…”

“Ah, so you admit to stalking me now?”

“I wasn’t stalking!” You can’t help the whine coming out of your voice. “It’s just… a casual, everyday observation…”

“Sure, sure,” he hums, and right on cute, swings his coffee mug in for another big gulp.

“So what do you eat?” you voice drops into an excited whisper. “Do you just drink blood? From where? Can you eat human food?” you begin interrogating him, rapid-fire.

He laughs. “Yes, I can get by with just blood, but I can eat regular food too.”

You gasp, the whites of your eyes showing in complete astonishment. “Where do you get the blood from?” Your voice drops even lower, scared to know the answer but your curiosity bites you too hard to let it go.

“I have my connections,” and he winks at you. Your face falls in absolute mortification and can only think of the worst scenarios until he’s openly laughing at you.

“I’m friends with a doctor at the hospital forty minutes away from here,” he sniggers from behind the rim of his mug, clearly very amused from your reaction. “I stop by once a week to stock up on blood bags.”

“I have so many questions…” you breathe out, fasciated like a child that’s been given free rein in a candy store.

“Maybe another time,” Seungcheol sneaks a quick glance at his watch. “I have to head back, got a last-minute meeting that I have to prep for.”

“Oh shit,” you curse, thinking about your own work that’s piled up and waiting for you on your desktop. “Yeah, of course! I need to go back to my own work.”

“See you later then,” he nods while holding his cup up high in goodbye and turns to leave. You wave back weakly with one hand, nerves already in a wreck because “later” already implied another meeting with him, and you could not wait to have a date with a vampire.

 

+

 

The “see you later” ends up happening a lot sooner than Seungcheol had anticipated. You couldn’t be patient enough to deal with any polite formalities to even ask him out on a proper coffee date. The plan was to ambush him at his desk five minutes before his always-timely five o’ clock exit but you find him already waiting for you with his packed bag slung over his shoulder.

“How’d you know I was coming over?” you question him in bewilderment.

“I can smell and hear you from a mile away,” he answer with a grin. “Also, you kind of talk to yourself sometimes.”

Your lips tug down into a deep frown, perturbed at the thought of him being able to sense you from that far of a distance. “That’s a… that’s a little creepy? Kind of?”

“It’s creepy,” he agrees without batting an eyelash and crosses his arms. “But I can’t help my senses. Anyways, did you come to ask more questions?”

“Nope,” and the frown quickly flips into a smile when you remember the reason why you even rushed over to him. “I came to give you an answer to one of yours.”

“My question?”

“Just—” you grab his hand without warning and pull him away from his desk, “just follow me first.”

And to your amazement and slight gratitude, he follows along easily, and you walk across the office with a nervous smile plastered on your face.

“Like I said before, I’m friends with everyone around this office,” you say as you walk down the hallway. “That includes our cleaning lady! Our sweet auntie always makes me an extra cup of coffee whenever I’m stuck in the office late, and just the other week, she told me the passcode for the most private bathroom in our office.”

“You’re dragging me into  _another_  bathroom?”

Flustered, you pause in your step and look at him. “W-well, it’s very nice and private, and I was hoping to get a nice room for us to talk since there’s still some people—”

“It’s fine,” he cuts in on your stuttered speech with a smirk. “If we’re going to continue our conversation from before, a nice, private bathroom without any glass walls sounds good enough for me.”

With a shy grin, you pull onto his hand once more and continue your way. It only takes a quick turn to the left from the main office and down a dimly lit hallway until you’re facing an opaque glass door.

“This… this is our director’s office,” Seungcheol says, eyeing it with caution.

“Actually, his office is down that way,” you point down the hall and at another glass door. “This one is his very own private bathroom. I heard it’s got a lounge room inside.”

“Are you sure it’s okay to just… barge in here?” he asks cautiously.

“Nope!” you answer brightly. “Yes, I know we shouldn’t be doing this, but he’s away for two weeks and probably melting under the sun in Bora Bora. This room is practically empty the entire time he’s away unless it’s the cleaning lady coming in to dust his expensive, unused furniture.”

“I should be so against this…” but he doesn’t stop you from pushing in the pin on the number pad.

A beep rings out and you turn the knob and open the door. “You’re coming inside, aren’t you?”

Seungcheol smiles mischievously and enters the room right behind you. The cleaning lady was right when she said the bathroom was too luxurious to match the rest of the office. The two of you walked into a lounge room, complete with a full set of suede armchairs and a polished mahogany coffee table.

“I can’t believe this has its own lounge,” he muses, dropping his bag on one of the chairs as he looks around the pretentiously decorated room.

“The perks you get when you’re this high up,” you hum in response, fingers dragging across the tufted armrest.

“Well, now that we’re here… want to tell me why I was dragged in here?”

“Oh—” you swallow. “Right, well, the reason why I brought you here…” you trail off and Seungcheol crosses his arms, tilting his head as he waits for you to continue.

“The reason why you brought me here?” he questions with a teasing smile.

“I brought you here because…” You clear your throat. “Well, because I’m going to kiss you.”

He laughs hollowly. “You’re going to what?”

“You said you’d hope I’d still feel the same, right?” You gulp anxiously. “Well… I thought about it and my feelings haven’t changed. So I brought you in here because I wanted to continue where we left off.”

“Those are some pretty dangerous words,” he murmurs.

“Unless you don’t want to?”

“…Unless I don’t want to?” Seungcheol covers his mouth in disbelief. “I can’t— I can’t believe this is happening. So you weren’t drunk enough to forget that, huh?”

“I was drunk, but not drunk-drunk to mistake you as a vampire and forget the hottest make out I’ve ever had in my life,” you pout.

“The hottest?” He licks his lips, smiling.

You nod. “Yeah, I can’t lie about that,” you answer truthfully.

“We’re still at work, you know.”

“So?” You give him a shy smile. “That didn’t stop us last time.”

Seungcheol brushes his hair back with one hand and takes off his leather jacket, smiling so widely you could see every pearly white teeth. He throws it on top of his bag and takes a single stride towards you, closing the gap instantly as he takes your face into his hands.

“Now I see why you brought me in here,” he breathes against your heated cheek before turning his head to match his lips with yours.

It’s almost instantaneous how weak he makes you feel. Your legs are just about to give out when Seungcheol wraps a strong arm around your waist, pulling you in closer to him. You gasp when you feel his tight grip on you, and he takes that split moment to part your lips even wider, dragging his tongue heavily on your lip before slipping in with ease. Snaking your arms around his neck, you reach up to kiss him even deeper on your tippy toes. Seungcheol reaches down with both arms to scoop you up, wrapping your legs around his waist as he tips you over, lying you down on the coffee table while he continues to kiss you breathless.

You taste good to him. More than good actually, the taste of your saliva already washing away the bitterness of his seventh cup of coffee. You arch your back into him, desperate to feel more of him when you feel a low growl emitting from his chest. You can’t help the smile spreading across your face as you twist your head back to to give him better access. It’s messy, his tongue practically down your throat as you clutch onto his flexed shoulders. You whine into his tight grip as he continues to suck and lick at your now swollen lips. He parts away after spending what seems like an hour of engulfing you with his glistening lips, and you open your eyes to see him looking dazed, breathing ragged and low.

“Your eyes,” you whisper against his wet lips. “They’re red again.” You study the way his glowing crimson eyes seem like a molten haze, almost dripping with desire until he blinks.

He brings a hand up to massage his eyes. “Sorry,” he apologizes with a groan. “I can’t help them sometimes. I can’t control it as well whenever… whenever I get amped up about something.”

“It’s okay,” you giggle, grabbing the back of his head to bring him down for another kiss. “It’s not a secret anymore so you don’t need to hide that from me.”

And he moans into your kiss, slipping an icy hand under your shirt and securing it firmly on the small of your back. You shiver at the cold, and he mumbles another apology as he kisses you, rubbing circles with his fingers on your skin.

You bite down harshly on his bottom lip in the heat of your frenzied kiss, and Seungcheol groans out in a sound you weren’t sure if it was from pain or pleasure. With a gasp, you back away and apologize, “Sorry! Did that hurt?”

“No, no,” he kisses your frown away with a chuckle. “It’s okay. It didn’t hurt,” he murmurs and roughly grabs the back of your neck to pull you into another deep kiss. “Bite me all you want.”

Eyes fluttering shut, you can’t help the moan escaping your mouth at those words as you feel the growl rumbling from his chest as you grip onto his shirt. You know that without a doubt, the two of you would have spent the entire evening together, locked away to kiss each senseless, but soon enough, a loud vibration from Seungcheol’s jacket makes him reluctantly tear away from you. You sit back up, hands fumbling up to tame your messed hair as he rummages through his pockets for his phone.

His screen lights up, and you watch as he reads his messages with a frown.

“You okay?” you ask.

He shakes his head, typing up a quick message before sliding his phone in his back pocket. “I’m fine, but,” he brings your hands up his lips, a kiss on both hands and looks at you apologetically, “I forgot I had an appointment with someone after work today. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“Oh no,” your brows knit together in worry. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t even realize. Are you late?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I just wish I didn’t have to leave you so soon.”

You giggle with a blush, pleased because you could tell genuine he was with his warm tone. “I’ll see you again at work. Now go! Don’t want to keep your appointment waiting.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Seungcheol places a chaste kiss on your cheek and speaks directly in your ear, “And I’m glad you feel the same way.”

 

+

 

“My God. You  _reek_!”

Kwon Soonyoung sits at a table in the corner of the cramped cafe, nose scrunched and face twisted as soon as Seungcheol steps foot into the facility. Soonyoung is an old friend as well as the appointment Seungcheol had to leave you for. Right now he’s questioning if he made the right decision at all. The other patrons don’t seem to pay Soonyoung’s outburst any mind, but it would be poor form if they had to relocate because of a simple, avoidable indiscretion.

Seungcheol frowns as he walks over to his friend. "Keep your voice down, idiot.” After he sheds his jacket and plops down onto the cheap, faux-leather armchair opposite of Soonyoung he asks, “Do I smell bad?” Worry creeps into his face as he thinks back to his intimate moment with you in the bathroom.

“No, actually…” Soonyoung trails off to sniff the air overtly, not even bothering with acting like a human for ten seconds. “It’s sweet. Like peonies and jasmine, but so, so  _human_.” His cheeky grin grates on Seungcheol’s nerves because that was exactly the top notes of the fragrance you used. “It’s like you doused yourself in a bucket of human pheromones, you’re absolutely dripping.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes at his friend and grabs the cup of coffee that Soonyoung had ordered for him over thirty minutes ago.

The cafe is busy as usual. There is a line of people waiting to order reaching the front door, and the dozen or so seats that are scattered around the cramped space is stuffed with people hunched over and typing away on their tiny laptops. Seungcheol picked this particular corner cafe on one of the busiest city streets specifically for this reason. It’s loud and obnoxious, and there’s always someone complaining about their milk not being frothy enough, but no one really cares about anything or anyone other than themselves. Everyone is too wrapped up in their digital world, too busy to even spare a glance towards anyone else, and that was exactly what he needed — a place to have a private conversation in a seemingly normal place where he was positive no one would eavesdrop on him.

“So? How are you?” Soonyoung asks as he takes a sip of his drink.

“I’m good,” Seungcheol responds simply.

“Hmm.”

An expressionless silence overtakes them as Seungcheol sits there, quiet as a bat, and unsure of how to even start his conversation with his friend as Soonyoung patiently waits, waiting for the reason why he was called into this chaotic cafe for his old friend in the first place.

Seungcheol clears his throat and asks him a question instead. “How’s Katherine?”

“She’s as lovely as always,” Soonyoung chuckles at the abrupt question. “We made plans to go away to Bangkok together for the holidays.”

“That sounds nice.”

“We’re looking forward to it.”

“When are you going—”

“Seungcheol,” Soonyoung cuts him off. “You didn’t make plans with me to ask me about my love life. Just talk already and tell me, what’s going on with you? It’s not everyday that Choi Seungcheol wants to meet up.”

Seungcheol shifts his eyes away. “There’s a girl.”

“A girl,” Soonyoung repeats with a sly smile. “And what did this girl do to turn you into such a nervous wreck?”

“I am not a nervous wreck.”

“ _Riiight_ ,” Soonyoung sniggers behind his cup. “First time I’ve ever seen you this quiet. This is completely unlike you. What’s with the sudden interest in a human girl?

“She’s… different.” Seungcheol bites down on his lip, mentally cursing himself for sounding so lame even to himself.

“Ugh!” Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “That’s so overdone and cliche. Can’t you come up with a better answer than that?”

Seungcheol sighs. “Something… something happened with her last week at work and I was worried about how I was going to react which is why I wanted to meet up with you but now…”

“Now what?”

“I saw her again today and whatever doubts I had about her… I’m not sure if it’s something I need to be so scared about anymore.”

“You walk in drenched with the scent of this girl. I’m assuming it’s the aftermath of doing certain activities with her,” he wags his eyebrows at Seungcheol comically. “So let’s back up a little bit. That something that happened with her at work… what did you do?”

“We may or may not have been… locked up in a bathroom…”

“A bathroom?” Soonyoung stifles a laugh. “Like 7 minutes in heaven kind of locked up?”

Seungcheol shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Okay, so you hooked up with a human girl at a party and you were scared of going all vampy on her. Fine, it happens to the best of us,’’ Soonyoung blows off the news easily with a scoff. “And what happened with her today?”

“The same thing may have happened today after work…”

“Oh? So she’s not just a hook up then,” Soonyoung muses.

“No! No, she’s not,” Seungcheol exclaims. “She can’t be because— because well, she knows.”

“What do you mean ‘she knows’?” Soonyoung immediately frowns.

Seungcheol pauses. Finger tapping the table nervously, suddenly afraid of telling his friend what he had done. “I told her.”

Soonyoung eyes go wide, slowly realizing the meaning behind his words.

“Fuck,” he curses, staring Seungcheol sternly in the eye as he whisperly lowly, “you crazy fucking bastard!”

Seungcheol rubs his eyes, scrambling to try and collect his thoughts before speaking them out loud to his friend. “She has this scent and it— it drives me, no, it drove me crazy. Like my insides were constantly scratching itself, trying to claw its way out of my chest. You know that feeling?”

“Of course I do,” Soonyoung says bitterly. “I feel it everyday.”

“I could smell her everywhere I went, and after last weekend, I was scared out of my wit’s end, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of all the drinks I had, but I was afraid of myself. I was terrified that I was going to harm her or go berserk, but I realized something today when I was with her again. It wasn’t something bad, being with her didn’t make me feel dangerous at all — it was the opposite. I felt… I felt safe.”

Soonyoung’s brows quirk up at that. “Safe?  _You_?” He laughs in disbelief. “Being…” he waves his hands around motioning at him, “What you are and everything. You felt safe?”

“I didn’t get that feeling when I was with her, Soonyoung.” Seungcheol grips his hands tightly together. “That feeling we always have. The one that crashes into our bodies the moment we wake up, and the feeling that we carry all throughout the day and drowns us in until the very second we fall asleep.”

Soonyoung can only nod at that, silent. Of course he knew. Every vampire knows what the feeling is like. The disgusting, almost mind-numbing hunger that claws at their perpetually empty stomach during every waking moment of their miserable lives.

“But it’s not like it’s completely disappeared,” he continues on. “It’s still there, like a constant reminder of letting me know what I am. But… but when I’m with her - not just in the same room or just sitting next to her - when I’m with her, knowing and feeling the same things that I think and feel towards her… it’s just gone. And— and all of a sudden, I feel alive again. Really alive.”

“Hmmm,” Soonyoung leans back and stares out the window. “Well I can’t deny how jealous I am that you feel this way.”

“I know and—” Seungcheol pauses, heart already hurting at how much pain he knew his friend was in. “I know how much you struggle with her everyday but I just needed to talk to someone. I needed to talk to you. You’re the only one out of all of us that’s with a human.”

“You know we,” Soonyoung growls, and points his finger back and forth between him and Seungcheol. “We don’t get safe. That’s not what we’re made out to be. We don’t get that luxury of feeling content with our lives, and feeling like we’re not some great danger to society.”

“I know,” Seungcheol mutters quietly.

“But… this was never really our choice, was it?” Soonyoung bites back his anger for his friend. “We deserve happiness too, just like everyone else, don’t we?”

Seungcheol takes his first sip of his coffee. “I’d like to believe that, yeah.”

Soonyoung leans back against his chair. “And how do you feel about her?” he questions.

“I like her,” Seungcheol answers truthfully. “I like being with her and I want to be with her.”

“Are you okay with her knowing?”

“I told her because I wanted her to know,” Seungcheol nods. “She knows and somehow, she’s not scared of me. More than anything, she seemed excited to when I told her the truth and she likes being with me as well.”

A soft smile begins on the curve of Soonyoung’s lip. “What do you want to do now?”

“I want to get to know her more.” Seungcheol grips onto his mug firmly with both hands. “And I want her to know more about me as well.”

“Then do it,” Soonyoung says softly. “Get to know her. I hope she continues to feel the same way about you.”

“Are you sure I can do this?” Seungcheol asks, his dead heart feeling heavy in his chest with all the unknown consequences of telling you his secret. “Do you think I can have this?”

“After everything you’ve been through,” Soonyoung places his hand gently over his friend’s. “You deserve this.”

**Author's Note:**

> biggest thanks to becky and kappy for helping me start this story. love ya lots!!


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